


The Life You’ve Imagined

by brokenmemento



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Harley Quinn (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/F, Falling In Love, Inspired by The Haunting of Bly Manor, Metaphorical Ghosts, No Actual Ghosts, Slow Burn, Trauma, gothic style, haunting pasts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27101893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento
Summary: An American therapist is tapped to counsel a young girl with a troubled past, coinciding with dealing with her own issues.On her excursion across the pond, Harley Quinzel finds herself struggling to adapt and Pam Isley the gardener working to hang on to the solitude she’s always valued when a beautifully infuriating blonde arrives at Wayne Estate.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel, Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	1. The World Cracked Open

There’s a certain logic to living. A fine art to figuring it out. Which very few people ever do, no matter what they say. Because for the strength of the human spirit, the will of the mind, the heart has a way of rewriting one’s story. 

The organ creates conflict, induces its own cliffhangers. Delivers the bittersweetness of the day to day and staggers to and fro from the suspense of the world. 

The heart is good at wait, good at ache. Good at getting it right then so incredibly wrong. Then the same combination but flipped around to make a Scrabble type of scenario, always looking for triple letter scores when barely any words can be made. 

Oh, the heart. So vital, so cloaked in mystery. Where light and darkness may live in tandem. Where demons come to live when they slip from the mind. 

Sometimes, the ghosts that exist dwell within ourselves. Sometimes, we do our own types of haunting within the bodies we inhabit. Sometimes, no amount of running can banish them in our souls. 

//

She watches the small town pass by her window as the car climbs the large hill in the town proper. The quaintness of it, the running vines clinging to homes, the terra cotta colored rooftops snuggled against one another, a border collie standing on the stone gray street bricks—all of which she will leave behind soon. 

Turning to look out the back window, she gazed down upon the English countryside. The verdant hills sit tucked behind the houses, trees in speckled clumps as far as the eye can see. The sky is swathed in a warm orange hue, a dreamsicle sunrise as the vehicle leaves the village behind and continues further into the rural horizon. 

Dorset looks like a greeting card this time of year, the first tickle of spring arriving, or at the very least, a postcard. Something you’d photograph to send back home to someone special, to show them that places like this are real. 

Harley leans her head against the window glass, chin resting on her palm which in turn, rests on her knee. She sighs a little. The thought doesn’t sit well for a number of reasons, so she tries to work her way through the melancholy attached to it. 

This is a fresh start, a chance for a deviation from the norm. It’s too early to be homesick, too soon to wallow in regret. There is nothing waiting back across the ocean anyway. 

No, it’s better that she’s here. About to do what she does best, what she knows she’s good at. A chance to get out of the normal rut to her life, an opportunity that would likely not present twice and is too precious to squander. 

Leaning back, she takes the file from her carryon backpack. A few dents and creases from the plane ride and subsequent shuffling out of Heathrow to the now almost hour car ride out of the city, but still holding up very well. 

Harley scans the particulars of it, makes sure to memorize every little detail. She quizzes herself mentally for the ins and outs of it, wants to know it like the back of her hand before she starts in with the patient. 

Her face scrunches, thinking of the diction. The person in question isn’t a typical client, as Harley has mostly dealt with adults. But she’s gained the reputation of being one of the top therapists in the country, if not the world, which is how she’s found herself riding on the wrong side of the road half a planet away from her old life. 

No, this is very different indeed. Her name is Lucy, a plucky looking six year old with a head full of red hair and piercing blue eyes staring out from the photo with an intensity one could drown in. The child did not crack a smile in the photo, a serious expression furrowing her brows and pursing her lips. 

Harley reads words like car crash and trauma and nightmares. Her hand inadvertently bends the page, her eyes glazing a bit as she goes too far inside of her own head. When she manages to wade through the haze of it and look down, she lets go quickly and blinks. A rattled sigh escapes her a d she works to calm her breathing. 

“Here we are missus,” the driver announces and Harley turns to look out of the window at her new abode for the next few months. 

The house is two story but wide across in length. Harley can count at least six windows on the front of the structure, not to mention the smaller out buildings she can make out behind it. Climbing vines trail the front brick and side structure, a stucco or siding. 

What’s even more impressive than the sheer vastness of the main building and subsequent smaller ones are the sprawling grounds. A lily pond spans the front for fifty or so yards, meeting the gravel of the driveway. On each side of it, immaculately pruned shrubs and hedges line the walkways to the home. Everywhere Harley looks, there’s green. 

The driver opens the creaking metal door and Harley quickly deposits her file into her pack and slings it over her shoulder as she exits. The sun hits her eyes and she shields them to do another once over of the place. 

“Who lives like this?” she whispers. Imagines her flat in Brooklyn, barely bigger than a linen closet in this place probably. 

“The lady of the house, God rest her soul, was old money. A Wayne before marriage.” 

Harley chuffs out a laugh and shakes her head in disbelief. “No wonder.” 

She’s been in the country only a few weeks but that’s been time enough to have heard about the Wayne’s. Uncle Brucey has his hand in everything. 

The driver sits her luggage on the gravel drive with a crunch and tips his hat. “You’ll make it alright?”

“They’re expecting me,” Harley points but doesn’t feel overly confident about walking into somewhere she already feels out of place. 

New York is a place to disappear, huge in its own right. Even though the estate is massive, Harley already feels exposed and incredibly...American. She’s used to concrete and sirens, not foliage and birdsong. 

She tips the driver and makes her way to the heavy double wooden doors, feeling like she’s in a Dickens novel as she lifts and lowers the bronze knocker on it. It swings open and one of the most stylish women Harley has ever seen looks her up and down. 

“You must be the new blood,” she practically purrs, her chocolate brown hair brushed back by a dark skinned hand so that it falls over to the side of her forehead. 

She leans against the door frame in her designer dress and appraises Harley up and down. Words still haven’t made their way to Harley’s throat and the woman raises an eyebrow. 

“Kind of hard to counsel someone if you’re a mute,” she quips and Harley frowns.

“Harleen Quinzel,” she sticks out a hand and the woman scoffs. 

“Lord, you Americans sure know how to name yourselves,” the woman shakes her head in derision. “Selina Kyle, tutor. Pleasure to meet you,  _ Harleen _ .” 

She intentionally emphasizes Harley’s name terribly. Harley tries not to get any madder than she already is. Apparently, Harley does a poor job at hiding it because her lips curl into a grin. “Oh, she’s going to love you.”

“Who? Lucy?” Harley questions. 

“Mmm,” Selina hums, neither confirming or denying Harley’s query. She runs a long manicured nail along the collar of her dress. There must be a trickle down effect with the finances around here because she’s the best dressed teacher Harley has ever seen. 

Before Harley can say anything more, the tutor turns on a heel and clicks away with a sashay of her hips. She rolls her eyes and follows the woman into the kitchen, watching as she gracefully slides into a chair and a steaming cup of tea is placed in front of her. 

“This doll here is John. Does all of the cooking. Pure magic in the kitchen. You’ll meet Lucy soon. She due in any minute for her breakfast and studies,” Selina ticks off, like a list. 

John strolls over lazily, a lopsided grin coming from his lips, wispy blonde hair sticking up a little in all directions. He’s got an ease to him, a boyish yet roguish charm. Harley has to wonder if he’s magic in other places too, judging him purely by his air and the way he introduces himself. 

“Leave it to that one there to take away the flair to my introduction. You’ve already got my name and title.” He shakes her hand firmly, solidly. Produces a cup after as a welcome. 

“Harley,” she smiles and takes the cup. She maneuvers herself to a seat across from Selina rather than beside her.

John plops down an English breakfast for them both and it’s weird how natural he seems about it, how he’s prepared one for Harley even though she hadn’t given them an exact time for her arrival.  _ Magic indeed _ …

She means to speak a ‘thank you’ to him but the words die in her throat as a loud noise sounds off to the side of kitchen and in walks another body, dark jeans tucked into rubber toed boots that are muddy and coming untied. Slightly tanned arms with defined musculature stick out from the sleeve of a green t-shirt and stark red hair escapes from a wound updo on a head Harley never gets a good look at before it turns to the sink. 

Harley watches this new person vigorously wash her hands and then lift a lid on a circular glass dish, withdrawing a pastry and stuffing it in her mouth. Unceremoniously, she turns around to take a cup of tea that John offers her and leans against the counter. 

Simply put, the woman is stunning. Despite the muddy shoes and slightly chaotic hair, there’s a splash of freckles under her deep green eyes that sends Harley’s heart slamming against her chest cavity. A completely weird feeling considering that...well, just considering. 

If she finds it odd Harley is sitting at the morning table with a steaming plate of food, having never been there before, she doesn’t let on. Instead, she bites off mouthfuls of her pastry and takes to goading John. 

“I put a proper English breakfast in front of the others, they think I’m a right perfect gentleman. You on the other hand shun my attempts at culinary masterpieces,” he points to Selina and Harley with their rapidly diminishing plates. 

“If you’d just make the switch to vegan, I’d eat whatever you put on the table,” the woman grins toothily, all pearly whites. 

“I can’t really handle flax seeds and lentils at every turn, Pam. Some of us need red meat,” Selina grouses and as if to prove a point, spears a sausage and delicately takes a bite. 

_ So her name is Pam,  _ Harley thinks. Still, no one moves to introduce them. She takes that as her cue to remain silent. 

“Your affinity for meat has gotten you into quite the predicament if I do recall, has it not?” Green eyes sparkle over the tea cup. 

“Oh, bugger off, Ivy. It’s a bit early in the morning for you to be so cheeky. Is it not?” Selina mimics and Harley is thoroughly lost. 

Is the redhead’s name Pam or Ivy? What is her job specification as pertaining to the estate? If her dress is any indicator, something outdoors and hands on. The green shirt seems to suggest…

Before she can query, in walks a small girl of about seven, the same face from the file tucked tightly in Harley’s pack out in the foyer still.  _ I haven’t even gotten a room yet.  _ Twenty minutes in and she’s already feeling like a fish out of water. 

“Your charge, Miss Quinzel,” Selina waves her hands with a flourish. Another stressor on her title. Harley fixes her with a look for a brief second before moving her attention to the little girl in front of her. 

Standing, Harley makes her way over to where Lucy stands in silent appraisal of the scene before her, warily eyeing the extra body that isn’t normally there.  _ At least someone notices _ , Harley thinks. Tamps down the urge to turn around, to search out those green eyes again. 

Even though the girl doesn’t crack a smile, Harley feels her heart warming. She loves children, has always been good with them. Even though she has gone into extensive counsel for adults, she’s always had a soft spot for the small ones of the world. So often forgotten, their issues and traumas are shoved aside because of their naïveté. As if worries cannot touch them, life can not haunt. How wrong people are. 

“Hello, Lucy. I’m Dr. Quinzel, but you can call me Harley,” Harley put on her warmest smile. Feels it genuinely. 

Lucy stays mute, but whips her attention to Selina who bids her speak. “This will go swimmingly if the both of you can’t form a sentence. Should I add signing to my curriculum? Heavens, spit it out, Luce.” Selina waves her hands as one would to reel in a fish. 

With a heavy sigh, Lucy speaks. “Like a doctor who cuts open people and gives shots?” She stops, contemplative. “I saw that on the telly once.”

“Uh, no. No scary things like that at all,” Harley quite doesn’t know what to say. 

“Oi, since when are you allowed that kind of programme on the telly?” she hears Pam (Ivy?) question. 

She supposes it’s like the saying goes about requiring a village to raise a child. The mishmash group has now become some surrogate family while Uncle Bruce treks the continent and lives lavishly. While the estate is certainly that itself, Harley has to wonder what all Lucy is missing out on. No lack of structure, sure, but what of love? Harley has to wonder. 

“It was on a channel I flipped to because I didn’t want to watch another episode of Selina’s  _ Friends _ programme,” Lucy says by way of explanation. 

Selina rises rather quickly, wrapping a hand around Lucy’s lips and settling the other on her shoulder as she leans into the girl’s ear. “Now, now. Tell this lot about the things you and I learn as part of our curriculum too.”

“Cat, we know you have a thing for American culture,” the mysterious woman in green chuffs. “Hence your current position at this lovely estate.”

“Bruce has absolutely nothing to do with my skill set or job acumen, thank you very much,” Selina looks ruffled, shoulders rolling in her designer dress. 

“Mr. Wayne is American?” Harley asks, confused. 

“Born there, not raised. A jaunt across the pond turned into a long time stay for his parents,” Selina explains. 

“How fortuitous then that you managed to find yourself beneath him on a similar jaunt,” the voice behind Selina teases as she walks forward and plops at Selina’s abandoned spot at the table. 

Selina looks exasperated and covers Lucy’s ears now. “Cool it down, Ivy. There are children present, John included.”

“I’ll have you know it takes more to scandalize me than your midnight liaisons, Miss Kyle,” John finally seats himself with that same rakish grin. 

“I see how it is, gang up on the one person in this house who has enough sense to keep us all plugging along. I’ll have you all know that I’m widely sought after for my tutelage methods,” Selina looks scandalized. Harley has to wonder if there’s any truth to the Bruce Wayne accusation. 

Harley doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers, but the whole dynamic occurring has her floundering for some type of purchase as to what’s happening. She works to reign in her own bouncing thoughts, doing a calming technique to prevent her own spiral. 

“I believe Miss Kyle there has a few lessons for you to do. But how about after, you and I take a walk by the pond and you tell me what you know of the flowers there?” Harley suggests. Hopes against hope that she hasn’t made a mistake in assuming Lucy can tell her a bit about the estate. 

“Ivy is better with plants,” the young girl whispers and Harley’s heart does a weird flip before bottoming out, worrying that this is a rebuff.  _ There are other ways, Harley. To both of them.  _

She shakes her head and blinks heavily when she realizes the thought she’s formed and stumbled over inside her mind. The girl in front of her is imperative to know. The woman behind her isn’t. In fact, she can compartmentalize whatever is rearing its head and welling up from the deep. Lucy is what matters. Lucy is why she is here. 

“I’m sure Ivy is a wonderful source about them,” Harley begins and it feels weird to say her name, the weight of it foreign on her tongue. “But I would like your descriptions I think. Maybe you can also tell me all the things I need to experience while I’m here in England. You know, since us Americans don’t know much about it and all.”

“Yes, ever since the tea incident in that harbor of yours, you’ve been quite rubbish at knowing a good cuppa,” that voice behind her sounds and Harley wonders if her swallow is audible. Apparently no one is immune to Ivy’s sarcasm. 

Instead of bristling under it like Selina’s, Harley just feels incredibly warm. Maybe sensing her unsureness of how to go on, she startles when soft and tiny fingertips brush against her own. Lucy stares up with those big blue eyes and too serious face. They hold one another’s looks for a few moments, as if sensing kindred spirits in one another. Like the pain their hearts contain is maybe very similar. 

“After lessons then,” Lucy nods solemnly.

Selina cuts in, steering Lucy by the shoulder and depositing a muffin in her hand. “Let’s let Miss Quinzel get settled, shall we? Then you can show her the pond and perhaps the gardens too?” They make their way out of the kitchen, breakfast all but forgotten. 

John moves his plate to the sink and withdraws a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, nodding to both Harley and Ivy before disappearing as well. Which leaves the two women alone in the kitchen. Harley works to steel her nerves and turns on the ball of her foot, spinning with an unsteady smile trying to be confident. 

Just as she opens her mouth, Ivy doesn’t even crack a smile as she rises from the table, scraping the chair on the tile floor and never once breaking eye contact with Harley until she makes her way out of the room. 

Harley leans against the marble countertop, gripping it roughly as she works to get her breathing under control—in for a count of four, out for a count of four. This can’t happen here, this can’t happen  _ now _ . She’s worked so hard to move away from the triggers, to get away from the old ghosts that creep. 

Harley closes her eyes, feels her heart start to slow. Surely, surely, demons can’t swim. This has to be a new start. This has to be the escape she’s been looking for. So far though, it doesn’t feel like it at all. 


	2. The Conundrum of Humanity

People are conundrums, twisting and confusing forces that either mangle one another beyond belief or barely manage to prop one another up. That’s not a glass half empty kind of way of looking at things—it just is. 

Sure, they start out promising. Bouncing, full of life. But time warps them. The world does too. They become products of their surroundings, let the darkness overshadow them. Let invisible demons burrow inside their minds and hearts so that they feed off blood and bones, gnawing constantly. 

This is something she knows about, demons. How sometimes, they inhabit the people that come close. The people that you want to trust most. The ones that are supposed to care for you, keep you safe. 

In her fourth year of school, there had been a science fair. She’d decided to test the hypothesis of which fertilizer helps to yield the biggest and most vibrant specimen. There had been individual pots, tiny seeds in tiny hands. 

Oh, how they had grown. Spurts of purple, pink, white. She can remember the way she’d smiled that day, so proud of bringing something to life, nurturing it along the way. But there had been no smiles on their faces and she’d felt her heart break into.

Certainly not the first and definitely not the last, something eked out of her that day. Left something behind that never wanted to feel that feeling again. The one that adopted solace in being alone. In a life of letdowns and aches, it’s better this way. 

//

She has no intention of becoming friendly with yet another body. There are already entirely too many at the estate anyway. So much so that Ivy takes to the grounds as much as a can. 

Not to say that she doesn’t like John or Selina. Even Lucy is alright as far as small people go, but Ivy has never been particularly good with them since she’s been alone for as long as she can remember. 

A little forcefully, she brings the shears together to take off a branch of a beech that has gotten a bit squirrely as it’s grown. She sighs in exasperation, not feeling at all calm like normal. Plagued by thoughts she doesn’t want to acknowledge. 

Ivy has a boring life, one that’s by choice. While others may glance to see a solitary way of living, there’s a reason for it in the end. But people keep popping up like weeds, invasive ones that can’t be completely ripped away without disturbing the flowers a little. One in particular. 

So while she’d like to go back to that quietness, there’s none to be had as she looks across the estate lawn to see Lucy and her new therapist strolling along. The blonde is talking animatedly, gesticulations here and there like a woman slightly mad. Or over-exuberant. Whatever the correct terminology, Lucy seems to be _tolerating_ it, even if her face doesn’t show anything but her usual unreadable expression. 

Ivy has been at the estate long enough to have seen the girl before she retreated into a shell. But it’s been so long since then, the face she wears instead is her usual now.

It’s not her place to interfere with the deep goings-on of what happens in this place. Only, there had been a time when she did. A time she cared, a time she let go a little bit. A time she lost and the ache began anew. For no matter what Ivy has felt about it all, she knows she cannot begin to fathom the depth at which Lucy’s goes to. 

She watches the American talk loudly, grin widely. And alright, maybe she has a nice smile if Ivy were into that type of thing, which she is most decidedly _not_. There hasn’t been a lot of those going around here at the Wayne estate ever since the Missus passed. John and Selina try, they do, but it’s hard with someone so little as Lucy who carries the weight of what’s happened etched in her face. 

They walk the length of the pond and Ivy can barely make out Lucy pointing at things the farther they go. _So she’s at least speaking then_. A small feat in and of itself. She’s sure the girl talks during her lessons to Selina but words rarely pass between the two of them. 

_Because you’re the same type of people_ , Ivy thinks. Rather than stand in that rather old and uncomfortable footprint, Ivy takes to trimming what’s left of the beech quickly and roughly. Admittedly, it’s not her best work considering the distractions but it’s not a completely shoddy job either so she descends the ladder when she’s done only to find the bespectacled blonde waiting at the bottom. 

Her curious blue eyes peer up with a tinge of regret when Ivy jumps at her presence, snorting a little in derision. “Warn a lady before sneaking up on her, will ya?” Has it really been that long since she’d gone back to the tree and left Lucy and this woman to themselves again? Long enough for her to appear at the foot of the ladder. 

It’s then that Ivy notices the cup in the woman’s hands, palm curled around the porcelain. There is steam coming off of it and Ivy tries not to let her facial expression change to thanks. She purses her lips. 

“Oh, uh, John said you might need something to drink? That sometimes you get too intense with your plants and lose track of time. I offered to bring it to you since we haven’t been properly introduced…”

“You didn’t touch it, did you?” Ivy frowns.

Blue eyes look bewildered. “Wha...what?”

“The tea,” Ivy points to the cup. “You lot don’t exactly know a good brew. The water to tea ratio is all off, not to mention…”

Now it’s the blonde who cuts her off. “Back to the harbor, are we?”

“Darling, we’ve not left it since 1773,” Ivy says drolly. 

She goes to take the cup from the woman’s hand but she turns slightly, angling her shoulder forward. There’s a mischievous tug at the blonde’s lips and when she raises her eyebrows, Ivy knows she’s in trouble. 

“I’ll give this to you when you stick out your hand for me to shake, grip it three to five seconds, and pretend that you’re actually not physically pained to be near me for longer than a breath.” She smiles again and Ivy feels the agitation in her ripple like water. 

While she absolutely hates being coerced into anything, she is thirsty and slightly peckish. The sooner she gets this over with, the sooner she can quench her thirst and wander off to see if John has done right by the house and heavenly blueberry scones he happens to whip up from time to time. 

Ivy grits her teeth and sighs heavily before extending a hand. It’s gripped and before the American can take over the pacing of this, Ivy begins to tick off details. 

“Pamela Isley, but as you can see, most refer to me as Ivy for very obvious reasons.” She motions around to the grounds. She’d say more if there were any to tell, but that seems to be the end of it so she goes silent. Her hand stays connected to the woman’s.

“Okaaaay, cool. I was waiting for a little more but since you’ve done your version of show-and-tell, I’ll do mine. You can call me Harley and I promise I will not interfere with your extreme dislike of humanity as you find escapism in your plants,” Harley moves their hands up and down with a more delicate restraint that Ivy thought her possible of. 

Just as she goes to disconnect, she realizes what’s been said. “People like you think they can show up to a place and psychoanalyze someone in nanoseconds. Well, you’re wrong.”

“So you don’t prefer plants to people?” Harley tilts her head, much like Ivy has seen furry animals do of the dog variety. 

“That’s beside the point,” Ivy snaps and takes the cup from Harley’s waiting hand, finally getting a sip of the surprisingly still warm earl gray. She takes a long and indulgent drink eyeing the therapist warily from over the cup. “You’re still here.”

“If you feel psychoanalyzed, let me make it up to you,” Harley shrugs, then stares in that overly intense way Ivy had noticed when she walked in the kitchen earlier. Ivy can’t help but laugh. 

“And how would you do that, Yank?” She takes another drink. 

She’s got no intention of doing much of anything with Harley Quinzel but she’s amused, to say the least, so she decides to indulge her. But confoundingly, Ivy watches as the blonde gets shifty and runs a nervous hand through her windblown hair as she stammers. Ivy doesn’t have to be a therapist to see what’s happening. 

“I don’t know. What do the English do to get to know one another? We could go out for a meal at the little shop back in town. Or...uh, you could show me your favorite spots on the grounds since I’m just learning the place. Maybe John would let me in the kitchen to pack us a picnic?” Harley suggests and Ivy can hear the hopefulness in her voice. And then it all goes to shit. “I’ve never been someplace so extravagant or over the top fancy in all of my life so I’m finding my ground still.”

The tea becomes an afterthought. Ivy feels her blood boil. “This _extravagant_ place keeps me employed, I’ll have you know,” she says lowly with a quiet edge. 

Harley’s eyes go from flirty to frightened. Ivy has to wonder if the woman even knew what she was doing. She waves her hands a bit, shaking her head. 

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that...well, I grew up super different in Brooklyn and…”

Ivy throws a hand up to make her stop. “Save it. It doesn’t matter. The lady of the house was a good woman, despite her bloke being shite. I’ve been around long enough to have seen the happier days here though. It wasn’t always like this. Maybe you should observe a bit more before you pass judgment.” 

She gives Harley no room to insert anything else, stalking off. Not like she had much more to say anyway. Words matter and Ivy has never been particularly good with them even when they need to come out. 

She wanted to believe this one would be different. That not everyone's the same. Harley Quinzel is from the same cloth though, just as ire inducing as the rest. 

Ivy sighs and runs a hand over her face before making her way to the gardens. The main house will need fresh vegetables for the night. She aims to not be disappointing like so many others around. 

//

“Okay, so that didn’t go well. Not at all,” Harley paces back and forth, her red and black Converse crunching on the driveway. A shaking hand goes up to wipe away the sweat beading at her forehead and her vision swims. “Not now, _geez_ , not now.”

This happens sometimes, the shaky hold on control. She’s tried her coping techniques, the things that she tells others to do when they feel bouts of uncertainty or doubt. Life sees fit to blast those ways of dealing out of Harley’s repertoire though. 

The past is pressing in again, the feeling of rejection and dismissal. But this isn’t the same with Ivy, not like it had been with him. She’s just a little more closed off, a tad harder to reach. And Harley doesn’t even have to reach her! Not everyone has to like her, Ivy included. 

There’s this nagging part that keeps floating back though as Harley works through the anxiety. The part that had seen something in Ivy’s eyes, something deep below the surface that maybe would rise to the surface if someone would just take the time to listen.

As of right now though, Ivy doesn’t even want to be friendly with one another, much less in the same room. There’s Selina, sure, but Harley doesn’t see much of a kindred spirit feeling connecting between her and the teacher. 

The ache begins anew, the pull. To want to know the mysterious woman in green. To learn Lucy in much the same way. Both souls incredibly vast and endless, both shut off from the world with a heavy door. Harley surmises that if she can figure out Lucy, how to interact with the young girl, a similar approach could be taken to Ivy too. 

Gathering herself, Harley works to calm the dissipating shaking of her hands and sucks in two lungfuls of air. Feeling a bit more steady, she turns back to the house and begins to make her way upstairs, finally grabbing her rolling cases, backpack, and carry-on case to head to her room. 

Using her elbow to open the door, she rather ungracefully falls through it. It feels like stepping into another time period, not at all like having a foot in the Clinton era. Everything has an abundance of detail: drapery, ruffles, baubles, tassels. Those same things have every imaginable type of ornateness too. 

A dark mahogany chair with scrolling swirls sits by a matching desk, a lush emerald pillowed cushion inviting someone to take a seat. A large area rug spans the floor leaving little of the pristine cream-colored carpet, atop of which sits a four-poster bed that looks almost too beautiful to turn the covers down, much less sleep in.

Everything feels incredibly decadent but instead of questioning it, Harley works to get settled in as best she can. At making this place as much hers as she can. She’s likely to not see her old life for quite some time, which manages to make her both melancholy and grateful at the same time. 

Once she’s unpacked, she looks at the time. Close to the dinner hour but not quite. Lucy’s lessons should be done for the day, so Harley makes the choice to venture to the little girl’s room. 

With a light knock, she hears the tentative “come in” and lets herself enter. The room is almost a reflection of her own, very little in the way of looking like the sanctuary of a child save for the large wooden dollhouse in which Lucy is perched in front of. Various dolls line the ground and Harley notices a China dish set on the end table along with a notepad and ink pen. Other than that, she’s standing in the space of someone living life too far in advance and not at all when she should. 

Harley squats down and looks at a doll stuck on the second floor of the wooden structure. She reaches in and withdraws it, the yellow hair of it looking pristine and mostly unplayed with. She wobbles it back and forth in her hand and puts on a rather ridiculous voice. 

“Top of the mornin’ to ya,” Harley’s voice squeaks and she ambles her doll near Lucy's.

“We don’t say that,” Lucy says quietly, almost sheepishly. 

“Huh?” Harley backs away a little, trying to figure out what Lucy means. 

“That is a saying that does not belong to the English and is instead a rather wrong idea that Americans have about us,” Lucy mutters as if she’s corrected an adult before and suffered the consequences to it. 

Harley sighs and throws up her hands. “I know I’m supposed to be the one who knows a lot of big things, but your way of life is very different to me. I’m not so sure how to act or what to say, but maybe you can teach me?” It’s an offer Harley isn’t sure the young girl will take. 

“I suppose,” she acquiesces, tilting her head and staring at her doll. Like Harley has interrupted her quite lovely time and turned it to a rather dull one. 

“Dinner hour!” a call sounds from downstairs, Selina’s lilting cadence carrying across the space. Harley can imagine her at the foot of the case examining a long and immaculate nail as she waits. 

“I guess we better wash up then and get a move on,” Harley suggests. 

Lucy rises begrudgingly, seemingly not liking the idea of Harley prodding her along. As she moves into the washroom, Harley tries not to let the girl’s muttering dislodge the resolve to make all of this work in her chest. 


	3. Minor Meltdowns

She’s studied theory after theory, read every journal and book there is to know about the complexities of human nature. Of human development and how each human grows and goes through the spectrum of cognitive and physical changes. 

She knows Lucy is in the preoperational stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, the point where children are capable of symbolic thought, where imagination and intuition are strongest, where abstract thoughts are still difficult. 

Or at least, that all of these things  _ should _ be occurring. But the girl grasps death, understands that it is bigger and greater than the scope of her comprehension as it were. Lucy knows the causes and effects of things, that for every action there is an equal and sometimes very opposite reaction. 

That when wealthy Uncle Bruce says he wants to help, that means from ten feet away emotionally, miles physically. That Harley is the surrogate to his ‘dealing with the issue of the girl losing her mother. (As if he himself did not lose a sister)

The girl understands that even though she’s receiving what Harley understands as Maslow's hierarchy of needs (Lucy calling them food, warmth, security) there is still something fundamentally missing. That a part of that triangle is jagged or warped, intimate relationships going as deep as they can for adults who aren’t actually parents, presenting as friends but feeling a little hollow against the word. 

These are the things that Harley knows and tries to remember, tries to tell herself that this is still a seven year old girl at the heart of everything. Lucy spends every single day reminding Harley that for everything she thinks she has under control, the surety of it, she actually has no idea. 

//

The first meltdown occurs four days after Harley arrives. But before that, there is a brief and fleeting second of peace. A few scant moments of feeling full to the brim, of seeing a smile bloom on a face that doesn’t show them often. 

Reaching Lucy is hard. Even harder still when Harley feels all of her efforts exhaustive, every attempt batted away as if knocking a fly into the wall. To have a lovely little child right in front of oneself and have little idea of how to reach the areas that matter most in her heart. 

But Harley doesn’t know how to give up, pushes on in the face of adversity. The plan comes about from a skittering thought that Harley takes and runs with. 

There is a large trunk sitting at her feet with various odds and ends to make costumes out of. She herself has fashioned a makeshift red and black number, a mix-matched amalgam of shirt and trousers she brought to the country, but with a pair of scissors taking to the fabric of each. Twisting her hair into pigtails on either side, she maneuvers a boombox into the large main room of the house aiming to snatch Lucy as she comes out of her lessons with Selina. 

She doesn’t have to wait long before Lucy arrives from the sitting room, a scrunched up look on her face telling Harley she very much believes she’s crazy. She soldiers on with the plan though. 

“Right, so!” Harley presses play on the boombox and the music begins. “I know they’re pretty popular in America right now too, but I thought it would be cool if the two of us had a bit of fun and did some karaoke maybe?” 

Harley reaches into the trunk and tosses Lucy an outfit. “You be Posh Spice, ok? I’m sort of a mix between Baby Spice and Sporty Spice.” She starts to shake back and forth on her feet a bit. “Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want…” 

Lucy looks dubious, at best. Getting wrapped up in the music though, Harley begins to bounce on the balls of her feet and continues to belt out the words to the song. The longer it goes, the more she sings and acts crazy, she can see the edges of Lucy’s mouth pull upward. 

She wants to smile. Taking this as a cue, Harley skips over to where Lucy stands and tosses the costume out of her hands. They don’t need it to have fun and Harley is determined to make this incredibly serious child happy at least once. Moreover, therapy can’t happen unless some sort of connection is made. This is greater than everything, showing Lucy she cares. 

Harley twirls them around the large room and finally, finally, laughter erupts from Lucy’s little lungs as Harley scoops her up and they begin to sing the song together. Because of course, Lucy knows the words. Everyone in the free world probably does considering how big the song has made it. 

In the midst of the dancing and practically yelling the lyrics, Harley looks up from laughing at Lucy’s face of joy and catches sight of Ivy standing in the doorway. There’s dirt on her jeans and boots but no mud. She looks a little more put together than the last time Harley saw her a few days ago by the beech tree. Since then, it’s only been from afar.

The smile slides off of Harley’s face as the song comes to an end. She punches the stop button while still holding onto Lucy and then addresses Ivy. 

“Hi,” comes out a lot less confident than she intends it. Seeming to sense this, Lucy wraps her arms around Harley’s neck. 

“What’s all of this then?” Ivy flicks a finger to the trunk and boombox. Harley can’t exactly read the expression on her face. She decides on chipper exuberance then.

“You’ve not heard of the Spice girls? They’re a big deal right now. Even Lucy here knows all of the words,” Harley points and receives a grin. “Anyone who isn’t living under a  _ rock _ would know them, I’m sure.” 

Ivy’s green eyes pin Harley against a wall and she nods slowly. “Right, so unless I wasn’t grossly aware of Baby, Sporty, Posh, Scary, and Ginger spice, I’d be spending my time as a rock dweller.” Her tone is ice but her face holds a tinge of mirth too.

_ She’s joking with me _ , Harley realizes. Why does she feel warm all over because of this? 

“Oh, Ivy! You do know them. How perfectly splendid,” Lucy wiggles to hop down. She walks over and touches Ivy’s hand who has still been holding Harley’s gaze. “I need to head to the loo, but maybe we can all sing when I return?”

Ivy finally breaks eye contact, looking down at Lucy. She gives her a pat and watches the girl run quickly upstairs. 

“I’m never doing that, for the record,” Ivy immediately announces after Lucy is out of earshot. Her boots scuff on the floor as she ambles forward, crossing her arms. 

The defiant stance, the joke earlier, all leads to Harley believing she can push at getting to know this incredibly mysterious woman who makes the gardens and grounds grow. She walks forward so that they’re standing closer than they’ve ever done before, closer than the tea incident. 

“It could be fun,” Harley shrugs and tilts her head, adopting her most warm smile. 

Ivy sighs heavily and her face softens a little. She purses her lips and then nods toward the trunk and the all but forgotten music box. “It’s been a long while since I’ve seen Lucy that happy,” she whispers. Her gaze goes unfocused, far off. Slipping inside of a memory. 

Harley’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Especially when Ivy walks out of her thought and comes back to look Harley in the eyes. And here it is again, that thing that seems to float between them whenever they’re in the same room, the same space even if it’s wide open. 

There is no good explanation for the pressure sitting in Harley’s chest, the inexplicable desire welling. What that desire is attached to, Harley can’t quite align it correctly. It feels like longing for companionship, a friend. Of wanting to know the soul standing mere feet away. Of needing so much more than that to feel satiated, satisfied. 

Before she can say anything, Ivy turns and disappears down the hallway and back into the kitchen. She’s frozen in the wake of watching Ivy leave until Lucy bounds down the stairs and shatters the immobility, thaws Harley to move again. 

“Next, ‘Say You’ll Be There,’ please,” Lucy smiles and grabs Harley’s hand, leading her over to the trunk of clothes and props.

Harley nods and gets everything ready. She should be focused on the young girl in front of her but she worries herself with a rather glaring fact. There is no use in denying it anymore. It’s taken less than a week for her to split down the middle, one half belonging to Lucy and wanting to deposit light inside of her chest. The other, wanting to do the very same with Ivy.

//

“You’re not my mother! You never will be!” are the words belted from a small set of lungs, rasped out through vocal cords, said amid a flow of tears.

She should have anticipated this. She should have. That the trauma of loss would manifest itself in some way. It arrives and is pointed at Harley later that night as she tucks Lucy in bed, asks her about her lessons with Selina. Tries to build her up over tearing herself down that she is not getting a mathematical concept that had stressed Lucy and Selina to the brink.

“Lucy, calm down dear. I’m just trying to tell you to keep your chin up,” Harley tries for a calm and soothing tone. It only seems to make it worse.

The girl throws her covers back and flies from the bed, her little hands clenched into fists. “That’s all I’m ever told. ‘Calm down’ or ‘Chin up’ or ‘Straighten those shoulders and still that bottom lip.’ But I get sad! I want to cry! I want to hug my mommy, she isn’t here and all of you are because Uncle Bruce  _ pays _ you to be!”

“That’s not true. John and Selina and me and....” Harley pauses, wondering about including the last name. She pushes forward. “And Ivy. We all care for you and wish for your happiness above all else. We want to be here for you. We want to be your friend.”

“I don’t need a bunch of adults telling me how I should feel or when I should talk. Sometimes I just want to be quiet! I don’t want to speak,” Lucy shoots back. The tears are starting to form and she shoves the bedside table, knocking off a stuffed bunny. 

Harley jumps, startled by the outburst. Lucy points angrily. “And you’re the worst. You pretend to be my friend and you are...you’re....you....” 

Reaching out, Harley tries to slowly reach out to give Lucy a grounding touch, to center her, but the girl retreats from the approach. “My mum had eyes like you,” Lucy says, barely audible. “They saw everything.”

Like a dagger to Harley’s heart, she wants to grab hold of Lucy and never let go. To protect her from all the things in the world that make her heart ache. She never gets the chance because the door opens and in walks Ivy with a severe look on her face.

“Oi, what’s with all the racket?” Ivy wonders, her hand still poised on the knob and ascertaining the situation.

“Like you care, Ivy,” Lucy shoots back in a whiny and petulant tone. There’s a snot bubble forming at her nose and the look she sends Ivy is chilling.

“If you’re looking for a coddle, you’ll not get it from me and you know it. But that’s no excuse for treating the people who do poorly,” Ivy fires back, her burning green eyes switching to look over at Harley, who by this point, is barely holding it together.

The room is too hot, the emotions are too charged. The situation must be diffused or they will all be victims of what bubbles up when things are at a snapping point. They’ve all got things they’re holding back and up and in and Harley is guiltily grateful when Lucy ends the stalemate for them. 

“I hate you, you know,” she levels Ivy with her blue eyes. “And Ms. Kyle and Mr. John.” She spins to Harley then. “Especially her. You know why.” With that, she storms out and Harley works hard to catch a breath. 

“That little fuckin’ shit,” Ivy breathes out in disbelief as Lucy shoves her way past her and out. By the time she’s turning back around, Harley is doing the same. “Where do you think you’re going?”

The yell is barely heard above the ringing in her ears. There’s sweat on her skin and she can’t gulp in a good breath. Her heart feels like it’s working overtime or stalling out or  _ something _ Harley can’t quite make out but she needs air immediately. 

The halls pass in blurs as Harley paws her way away, away, away. Why must this place, with its sprawling lawns and endless rooms, and space beyond Harley’s belief take her to her knees repeatedly?

Why are the words of a six-year-old able to transport Harley back to the blacktops of the city, to a pair of green eyes that morphed into unkind. A world away, a life left and waiting to be forgotten. And yet, god,  _ yet _ ...

Harley scrabbles against the large wooden front door, throws it open, and heedless of shutting it again. The cool night air hits her and she grips her stomach trying to silently beg it to stop its roiling. 

“There’s a reason they call it terrible,” her voice sounds behind and Harley tries to still, to gather herself so that Ivy can’t see her falling apart. But she can’t speak, at least not at first. 

Her boots crunch on the gravel, sounding like she’s dragging a toe in it. “Wait, I think that’s the two’s, not the sixes. Shite. Anyway, that shows you how much I know about children. The last one I was around was myself before Lucy and that was bloody 25 years ago, so I’d maybe take my advice with a grain of salt as it were.” 

God love her, she’s trying. Must have explicitly followed Harley out here to console her. The improbable welling of a laugh deep almost bubbles to the surface and Harley finds herself thinking about the red-haired enigma behind her instead of breathing. 

“I think there’s some truth to what you said,” Harley admits and runs the back of her hand under her nose. It’s gross, she knows, but Ivy is still at her back, so she’s a little less worried about decorum. 

“I’m not the therapist here, but I can offer some words of wisdom now and again,” Ivy shrugs, which Harley catches out of the corner of her eye. “This was going to be a tough gig for anyone. Don’t let the ghosts of the past chase you off.”

When Harley turns at that, Ivy has done that infuriating thing of walking off when so much else could be said. Like she’s gotten her fill of conversation and couldn’t have an ounce more. 

Fog swirls around the grounds and Harley looks up to see the hazy outline of the moon. Without her own head and Ivy to distract her, she realizes it’s a tad chilly and wraps her arms tightly around her. She makes her way to the door only to meet Ivy carrying a backpack and some gloves in her hand. They almost collide. 

“Oh, gosh, sorry,” Harley wipes the final remnants away from her eyes and holds the other hand up to avoid crashing into Ivy. 

The other woman seems rattled. “It’s fine, I’m just…” she points to an old beat up truck sitting off to the side of the pond. Harley wonders how she hasn’t noticed it before. 

“Can I help you carry anything?” Harley finds herself saying even though there’s not a single thing Ivy would need help with to load in her truck. Her face burns at the obvious error, at the compulsion to keep Ivy around. 

Ivy actually  _ smiles _ . “Unless you’d like to sweep me off of my feet and carry me to my truck.” She sobers when she realizes the image she’s created. She frowns and waves it off. “Not my best joke, alright. I’m new to this ‘being friendly’ thing. 0 for 2 today it seems.”

Harley’s hands move of their own volition, removing Ivy’s back from her shoulder to drape around her own. She then laces her arm through Ivy’s who stiffens at the act. “I’ll walk you to your vehicle,” Harley whispers conspiratorially. “I’ll protect you from all the English countryside monsters.” She pulls Ivy along to her truck 

To her credit, Ivy lets go a little. Even tightens Harley’s arm against the tuck of her own. They walk in silence until they reach the truck. Harley removes her hold on Ivy’s and opens her door chivalrously. 

Instead of climbing in and moving off like she always does, Ivy stays. She stays and Harley finds herself moving to run her hand along the cool metal of the door and window. To trapping Ivy into either sitting in her seat or remain standing with Harley very close. 

There’s a glint in those gorgeous green eyes, a softness too that Harley hasn’t seen yet at all.  _ For once, she isn’t running away.  _ This thought propels her into grabbing Ivy’s fingers with her other hand. 

“Thank you for a few minutes ago. For calming me down.” Harley says it softly, sincerely. She hopes Ivy can hear the gratitude in her voice. “I’m not great at having people that are actually good to me in my life.”

She’s admitted it before she knows how to react to the words herself. Harley had told herself not to allude to it even, the darkness at her heels, but she feels like the ground is cracking underneath her. That the red head’s cool skin that she can feel underneath her fingertips has her wanting to say it all. 

And Harley supposes this is how this is going to go. This floundering footing with Ivy, this slightly unnoticeable person she’s become since she boarded a plane and flew across the ocean. The way she’s coming to see things about herself that she hasn’t been aware of before, of not understanding them a lick and wanting them just the same.

So that boldness that maybe has always been there but just below the surface and perhaps the way Ivy looks at Harley like she’s constantly trying to figure her out and perchance because these two things are mixing and cannot keep from bursting, Harley lunges forward and kisses Ivy.

On the cheek. But oh, what it does to her! 

Her eyes are closed but there’s soft skin underneath her lips, almost as cool as that which Harley still holds in her other hand. She presses her mouth firmly into that beautifully freckled cheek and feels absolutely everything. 

When Harley disengages, she’s slow to open her eyes. Probably because she’s a little afraid of what she will find there, in those ones of green she feels rearranging her heart. What could occur in the expanse of what’s already passed could take her away at the knees.

“Goodnight, Harley,” Ivy flutters the breath against Harley’s lips. 

In a wisp, she’s gone and becoming a phantom feel that tingles against the skin. This time when she retreats, Harley feels nothing but full.

They’re getting there. 


	4. Fine Like Dandelion Wine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of updates. Life got busy but now I have a lot of time on my hands because of, well, 'rona. Here is another installment in the Harley/Ivy in England story!

Ivy drove home that night with one hand on the wheel, the other delicately grazing her cheek. Afraid that if she touched it, the remnants of Harley might disappear. She drifted in the feel of it, like laying back in the water and floating along.

Whatever she has been and whatever she is are surely not the same as what she is to become. The little seed that wiggles inside her chest, sprouting with a sliver of a tendril? She’s not meant to water it, not meant to show it light. 

But she’s given it these things, has let it build a home inside the earth of her body. Has no idea what she will do when it becomes too big to ignore or dismiss. Like she’s done many things in her climbing past and into thirty years. 

The English countryside had seemed a wonderfully quiet place to not disappear in solitude but tuck herself into it. It had the potential to become a different end than Ivy saw herself getting to live. Not at all like the start of her life, nothing like the middle of it. 

However, she’s finding that the Wayne estate is turning into a beginning of sorts. The new path is covered with straw-colored strands of hair, sky blue eyes that Ivy finds herself sinking deeper into. 

_ Lay back and float, baby, _ the voice tries to persuade. Ivy touches it, watches the ripples on the surface, and wonders how much longer she’s got to just herself before endings and beginnings are seamless overall. 

//——//

“Alright, keep a look here. Don’t move those eyes of yours, little lass,” John prompts and Lucy watches him with observant eyes. 

She jumps when he flicks the card suddenly, out of sight. Her mouth drops open when he reaches behind her ear and withdraws the once lost card. Ivy rolls her eyes at the parlor trick. 

“How on earth did you do that?” Lucy asks, voice back to sugar and honey. As if she didn’t spend the early part of the previous night eviscerating another adult with words. 

Ivy has half a mind to drag her out to the garden by her toes for a lesson in weeding, but when Harley enters looking no worse for wear, she lets the idea go. The woman is a therapist for Chrissakes. It’s not as if she needs Ivy to defend her honor. 

_ Which I did not do anyway _ , Ivy grouses a little bit, runs a blunt nail along a groove in the wooden table. It’s where she plans to focus her attention through most of the breakfast detail. Either there or on her steaming beverage. 

Harley sitting down next to her effectively rids both of those notions completely. Because as the child prattles on with John about magic, she feels the other woman’s gaze fall upon her. 

She looks down into her lap, worrying herself with scraping off a clod of drying mud which causes her red hair to cascade like a waterfall. Ivy is glad for it, the reprieve needed to calm the pinking of her cheeks. To calm the beat of her heart remembering Harley’s lips there the night before. 

Ivy sighs once the dirt is gone, shoving her hair back behind her ear and laying her hand on the table. Almost instantly, Harley’s is resting near too. Intentional. Placed so that they can feel the heat of one another’s skin from centimeters away. 

For the thousandth time it seems, they’re holding one another’s looks, the gentle unfurling of things becoming too great again. Just as she works up the courage to move her hand a little closer, to touch Harley for the first time of her own, Selina shatters the moment. 

“What have you got on today, Pam?” Selina sips from her cup and looks like the cat that ate the canary. Ivy hopes she’s as pleased with herself as she looks. 

_ Nothing gets by her sharp instincts.  _

“Gardening and…” and then Harley’s hand does brush against her and she becomes a stuttering mess. “And trees and you know, plants, and such.”

Selina is downright giddy, Ivy can tell. She tries for an imperceptibly quick shake of her head as if to say  _ not now, _ but what she really wants to say is  _ don’t, like ever _ . This must be what she gets for being slightly less than standoffish with the other help. 

“You’ve almost been here a week and not seen the complete grounds, yeah?” Ivy spits out while looking down into the milky tan of her cup. 

The question is aimed at Harley, but Selina takes it upon herself to insert herself where she is absolutely not needed. “What a lovely idea, Pam. You can shift your morning schedule to show our newest resident the luster of the Wayne Estate and do your ‘trees and plants and such’ thing after the midday hour.”

Groaning, Ivy latches onto Harley’s wrist and pulls her from the table, little squeaks of protest coming out of the woman’s mouth along with babble about Lucy. 

“She’s on Selina’s time until noon. You can be on mine,” Ivy explains and then continues with Harley trailing behind. 

Not that she gives her much of a chance to say no. They walk to the back of the estate, Ivy ducking into the greenhouse for a dark emerald bottle. She grips its neck with one hand, holds Harley with the other. Their palms are pressed and their fingers lacing feels natural. Like their hands were built for being together. 

Ivy has no idea what she’s doing or why she’s doing it. She knows who she has been and that’s about it. There’s no handle on who she is now, of what is changing every time she and Harley touch. 

The downed log is where she left it, in the grove of trees that is her absolute favorite spot on the grounds. Ash, birch, chestnut, oak. The lot of them cavort together with every brush of the breeze against their leaves. 

Plopping on the log, Ivy uncorks the bottle and holds it up in front of Harley who remains standing in front of her. “It’s been a shite week and I have never been more grateful to myself for brewing me own brew, that’s for sure.”

Tipping the bottle to her lips, the hints of orange, lemon, and the bitter floral hint hits her lips, her tongue, her throat. It takes the edge off of the morning, almost of having Harley watching her quietly. 

Some of it sloshes down her chin when she pulls back, so she uses the bank of her hand to wipe it away. The leftover finds its way to her jeans. Despite other’s beliefs that she lacks some manners, Ivy knows how to be accommodating when she wants to be. 

Instead of an olive branch, she offers the bottle to the therapist. “Dandelion wine. Versatile little sucker, it is. The dandelion. Most fail to think of it as it is: an herb.”

Harley looks wary but takes the bottle anyway. She sits beside Ivy and takes a swig. Her face contorts a little bit at the taste and Ivy can’t help but laugh. 

“Not a lightweight, are you? You Americans are supposed to be able to hold your own.”

“It’s just, this is my first experience with this,” Harley squints an eye as she takes another swallow. “Interesting stuff.”

“Mmm,” Ivy hums in lieu of words. They sit in silence for a good while, the bottle passing between them. 

“You’re not much of a talker, are you?” Harley asks, almost sounding sheepish. 

“I speak when things need to be said, not when they don’t.” Ivy tries to unveil the dig as much as possible, leave as little room for Harley to not get the gist. 

“It makes it incredibly hard to get to know you,” the woman says while bouncing both of her legs up and down. 

Nervousness, Ivy assumes. But she’s of no mind to bite Harley’s head off for wanting to know. Humans are curious creatures and to dismiss them as not being such would be an error on Ivy’s part. 

“And why would you be trying to do that, eh? I’m not the kid. I’m not a project or a task to unravel,” she takes a drink again. There’s no bite in her voice. She’s just genuinely curious as to why this one has seemed to have latched on. 

“Maybe it’s all of that talking you don’t do,” Harley shrugs. She looks far off, not meeting Ivy’s eyes. “It makes you mysterious, standoffish. But not in a way that dissuades me? I don’t know. It’s hard to find the words.” She withdraws a band from her wrist, works her hands in such a way as to twist it up onto her head. Ivy watches more intently than she should.

Harley sighs. “When I worked at the asylum back home, I never saw much good. Not really. And trust me, I was always looking. Maybe that’s why I’m the way I am. Why I’m wanting to ‘unravel’ you as you stated. Because I see some good deep down there, the place you don’t show a lot of people.”

“There’s not much to,” it’s Ivy’s turn to shrug. 

“Well, what if we exchange then,” Harley says as she turns to face Ivy from her perch on the log. She brings a leg up and Ivy frowns. She watches the woman gesticulate. “A back and forth, if you will. I'll tell you something about myself. You shoot back with something.”

It feels like a challenge. One Ivy finds herself not wanting to back down from. Not when those cornflower blues are turned back to her face and awaiting an answer. 

“I don’t know where to start,” Ivy admits. Her head suddenly feels very heavy and the same weight presses against her chest.

Seeming to sense this, Harley’s face falls a little. “It was just a suggestion. We don’t have to. Silence is good too.” She nods and looks off. 

“I’m good at being alone,” she finds herself blurting with zero context attached. She winces when it comes out. 

Harley spins her head back around to look at Ivy squarely. She nods, like a sage, and purses her lips a little. “Okay.” Said sort of like she understands. Ivy knows she doesn’t. 

“It’s just…” Ivy starts but then loses the words. She grows irritated that the right ones aren’t springing forth. “It’s been like that since I was a kid. Had to get used to finding things to keep me occupied while Mum and Dad were away or aloof in general.” She waves around. “Plants.”

Harley has a leg tucked to herself and the other draped over it off of the log. Since it’s a beautiful day, she’s chosen to wear cutoff jeans shorts—not exactly Daisy Dukes, but definitely to the point where Ivy can take in the creamy expanse of her legs. 

They’re long, muscular. Like Harley has spent time running or doing extensive workouts to get them that way. Ivy folds a little. Her body is good, strong. Probably not the most feminine though, considering she hails around heavy bags of fertilizer and trees all day. She feels self-conscious and runs a hand across the back of her neck. 

“So you developed a love for gardening at a young age,” Harley repeats. She looks wary, scared. She worries her lips between her teeth and Ivy begins to think of the ways she could remove it. 

“You owe me one,” Ivy points, dazed. Then she casts her green eyes up. “Give one, get one.” That’s the arrangement, right? 

“Alright,” Harley nods and then looks pensive. She sighs. “My family isn’t the greatest either. My dad has been in and out of jail for as long as I remember. Running scam jobs on the wrong people, mostly. But he also has a nasty gambling habit too.” She backs her shoulders and gives a smug but laden with a hurt smile. “Bet against me at my college gymnastics competition. Wanted me to throw the whole thing so he could win.”

_ So that’s where the muscles come from _ , Ivy thinks. But Harley has also just divulged a lot and Ivy is circling back around to process it. She wants to ask—no, she  _ needs _ to ask. But that isn’t the agreement and she notices Harley waiting patiently for the next volley.

“My father was verbally abusive. I don’t know that I ever heard him say a kind word to me. For a while, that’s all I thought it would be—words. But one time, it wasn’t.” Ivy stills, despondent inside of the memory. She’s six again and lost. “When he hit me, I gave up on humans.”

“I’ve been hit too...before,” Harley lets tumble forth and her eyes go wide. She places a hand over her mouth in shock. “I’m sorry. That’s...I didn’t mean to make a competition out of your pain.”

“Who hit you?” Ivy’s voice runs cold. She feels rage boiling and she has no idea why. She looks up from her shoes and slowly punctuates the words. “Who. Hit. You?”

Harley’s mouth drops open but no sound comes out. She lets out a labored sigh and closes her eyes, straightening her back again. “I was in a relationship before I came here. It wasn’t healthy. I see that now but I thought he…”

“What a fucking piece of shit,” Ivy intercuts and Harley’s eyes snap open. “See? People are awful. There you and your bubblegum smile and shining positivity and good vibes everywhere and...and someone hit you?” 

She’d be beside herself in shock if she could get past the indignation. That someone could treat Harley that way. That she herself has been mostly an arse to her since she set foot on the property. 

Her head scampers off, vows twisting and contorting her rational thought: that she’ll never be so cold or aloof again, that she will make sure no one raises their finger at this beautiful woman again…

...but that would require them to be something deeper than they are. It would require Harley staying on in England even after…

“It happens to the best of us,” Harley says sadly and Ivy looks down to see the woman’s hand atop her own. 

She stares for a few moments, adrift in sensations. “That’s not how things are supposed to be. The people we love aren’t supposed to hurt us.” Ivy can’t help but look to Harley, squaring off with her pale orbs again.

“So often, they do.”

_ I’d never hurt you. Not in a million years _ , Ivy wants to say. Doesn’t. 

The ache between them is palpable and Ivy can’t take it anymore. She begins to spill everything out, partially to run away from the new and unsettling thoughts Harley creates in her but also to be the one to lead before the woman starts digging in places Ivy doesn’t exactly want unburied. 

“I have a Ph.D. you know. In botany. The weak science, my father used to say. Medicine was where those with a true gift.”

Harley looks astonished. “Ive, I never knew.”

And maybe if she weren’t already so deep inside of herself, she’d stop to process what Harley has just called her. But she lets it skip right across her, a rock skimming a pond. 

“I ran, Harley. I ran from them and that fucked up life. I went to college, got my doctorate, and threw it all out the window to work here.” Her eyebrows are knit together, one step away from anguish. “I didn’t need them down my neck, always breathing, and I just wanted to be me and not the one they thought I should be.”

It’s then that she feels Harley’s thumb trace across her cheek, removing moisture, and dammit, she’s  _ crying _ . Not a lot but enough to be ridiculous because she’s also a little drunk too. Which is another ludicrous fact because it’s not even noon and who does stuff like this?

Damn her rogue reflexes too because she’s leaning into the brush of Harley’s finger and her eyes are fluttering shut. Even with her eyes closed, she can feel Harley moving closer. 

“Ive…” It’s a whisper of a thing this time that effectively snaps Ivy out of her trance. 

Her eyes pop open and she presses a palm into Harley’s shoulder to stop her forward motion. What she’s met with almost breaks her heart, Harley suspended and her own eyes closed, waiting.

“It’s the wine talking, not us,” Ivy rises from the log and bends to pick up the near-empty bottle. She pours the last remnants onto the grass. 

Harley looks confused, embarrassed. All things Ivy feels herself. For letting it get this far. For letting so much go. 

“Come on. Let’s head back.” Ivy hooks a thumb in the direction of the Wayne Estate. 

Even though the walk back occurs in complete silence, the things they don’t say are loud enough to pierce Ivy’s ears. Glancing at Harley as they walk, she’s not sure how much longer she can push her away and still make it out of this with a friend. Or maybe make out with something more. 

//——//

She doesn’t see her for the rest of the day. Or most of the morning. Despite that, Ivy finds herself so worked up that she completely tills and is planting a vegetable garden by nine the next morning. 

Six o clock had come early but she’d been out in nature, her element, before the sun had even decided to shine. Eight concise rows later, she’s on her hands and knees, gloves covered in dirt and fingers digging into the ground when the voice sounds behind her. 

“Okay, so I slept it off and decided I still want to know you.”

Ivy stops her task and rests on her knees before turning around to see Harley looking sheepish and way too glowing for the early hour. 

More pale skin is on display today, a red tank top covering her torso and toned shoulders peeking out from under. Black jean shorts sit on her small hips, a black belt wrapping around her waist. On her feet, Ivy raises an eyebrow at the red Converse. 

After looking at her head to toe, Ivy sees the grin across Harley’s lips, maybe sees the pinking of her cheeks too. 

“I don’t break anyone in,” Ivy sighs and tries to go back to work. Ripping open a seed packet, she uses her other hand and jabs three fingers into the ground, creating a pit. Tipping over the packet, she pours a few squash seeds in her hand and drops them into the hole. She frowns. “And don’t you have a boyfriend?”

“Uh, no? Remember, it didn’t end well. Sorry if I confused you or you thought that was still a…”

“Yeah, those pesky past tense verbs,” Ivy shakes her head. “Wait, so you’re not…”  _ into guys _ . That’s what she means to say. Harley cuts her off. 

“Oh, I am,” Harley affirms. 

“Then you don’t want any part of me, Harley.” Ivy laughs, incredulous she’s even addressing the 150 stones elephant in the yard. “I’m new, exciting to you.”

“Give me a chance?” Harley’s voice is so full of hope and sincerity that it stops Ivy from digging another hole. “Just let me plan something.”

This is a terrible idea. The worst in fact. 

Ivy has gone her entire life trying to keep everyone at an arm’s length, but this one is not to be deterred. In fact, she’s so vehement that she risks clotheslining herself. 

Ivy runs a dirty glove over her face, forgetting the dirt sticking to it. Particles of soil cling to the sweat already beading on her and apply themselves to her lip. She splutters and hears Harley’s contagious laughter. I’m a damn fool…

“Alright,” she growls, yanking the gloves off and truly dusting her face now. She squints an eye open and sees Harley grinning at her.  _ This woman.  _ “You better make it worth my while.”

“Oh, Ms. Isley. I intend to.”


End file.
